Jeni Haynes has 2681 personalities. Her partner Adam* has relationships with a number of them.

Content warning: This story deals with child abuse and rape and may be triggering for some readers.

Jeni Haynes has multiple personalities - 2,681 to be exact. She created each and every one of them to protect herself from the trauma.

From the age of six months old to 14, Jeni was repeatedly raped and tortured by her father, Richard Haynes.

The abuse was physically, psychologically and emotionally sadistic. Australian police called it one of the worst child abuse cases in the country.

In 2019, Jeni made headlines after becoming the first person in Australia to testify against her abuser from the perspectives of her Multiple Personality Disorder alters. (Note: While Jeni uses the term Multiple Personality Disorder, the clinical terminology is Dissociative Identity Disorder.) 

Richard Haynes, then 77, was sentenced to 45 years in prison, and will not be eligible for parole until 2050. He will most likely die in prison.

Listen to Mia Freedman's full interview with Jeni Haynes on the No Filter podcast. Story continues below.

To cope with the horror she experienced as a child, Jeni created these alters. There was her first - four-year-old Symphony, and now there are many others, including protective teenager Muscles, feminine Gabrielle, and Little Ricky who chooses which alter becomes "frontrunner".

Each of Jeni's alters has their own personality, voice and important role to play. For Gabrielle, it's her job to hold Jeni's femininity and sexuality.

"I kept it safe," Gabrielle told Mia Freedman on No Filter.

Jeni, now 52, has had three boyfriends in her lifetime and has been in a "tentative relationship" with a man she calls Adam* for the past three years.

Jeni and Adam met at a Christmas party neither of them wanted to be at and bonded over their love for music. Over time, he met all 2,681 alters.

"Adam is incredible because he can tell the difference between us by the way we kiss, which kind of blows my mind," Jeni said. 

"He has relationships with quite a number of the girls and bromances with a lot of the guys.

"And he's just amazing - so encouraging of everything we want to do, everywhere we want to go."

Adam can request to spend time with specific alters.

"We respect that request. Even if we had plans for something else, if Adam wants to be with a particular person, off we trot," she explained to Mia. 

But not everyone is in the room when they're intimate.

"It doesn't work like that," Gabrielle said, adding, "We have constructed a sacred space in our inner landscape, and when we spend time with Adam... if we're doing something intimate, we go into the sacred space and lock the door." 

"Anybody who wants to come in has to knock and be let in, and then the door is sealed behind them," she explained. "And spending time in that sacred space gives [Adam] security to know that he's not making love to 2,681 people at the same time.

"That would be exhausting on a number of levels."

For Jeni and Adam's relationship, talking about consent is crucial. It's the first and last thing they talk about and they've been known to pause midway through to check in about it.

"Because we've had consent taken away from us so much, having consent, giving consent and receiving consent is so important," Gabrielle said.

"It also means Adam has the chance to control what he consents to as well."

It's essential to differentiate between making love and the sexual abuse Jeni experienced.

"Making love is easy because we're in love with him, completely in love with him. The difficulty is remembering to make love in ways that are different from the way we were raped by dad," she said.

"Acts that might, on the surface, be identical to what dad did to us are infused with different meanings.

"They become a gift as opposed to a crime... and it's wonderful."

Watch Jeni's interview in video form here. For more No Filter episodes, go to mamamia.com.au/podcasts/no-filter.

The Girl in the Green Dress (Hachette Australia, $32.99) by Jeni Haynes and Dr George Blair West, with Alley Pascoe, is available now. Read an extract here. 

If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service. It doesn’t matter where you live, they will take your call and, if need be, refer you to a service closer to home.

Feature Image: Supplied.